There is extensive literature on Michigan’s “Copper Country,” but most existing publications on the subject are either technical reports or anecdotal recountings of exploration, mining and life in the “wilderness.” A recent book, “How the Rock Connects Us: A Geoheritage Guide to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royale” — written by Bill Rose and Erika Vye, both of Michigan Tech University, with Valerie Martin, a longtime Isle Royale interpretive ranger — fills a long-standing need for a readable, user-friendly explanation of how familiar Keweenaw landscapes and recent mining history are related to the area’s underlying geology. It is an eye-opener.

Gifts can be hard to find for the geek that’s got it all. If the science devotees in your life have already collected every piece of science memorabilia, or cleared out the shelves in the gift shop at their favorite museum, this guide might be just the solution. From inventive home and office items to engaging toys for kids, EARTH has curated a list of unique, fun gifts that any science lover would be happy to receive.

In the panoply of history-altering natural disasters, Lisbon’s destruction on All Saints’ Day, Nov. 1, 1755, stands out. You may have heard of this Portuguese calamity in the context of tsunami coverage, but it was a sequence of three disasters — an earthquake, a tsunami and a fire — that combined to level much of the city and claim tens of thousands of lives. Some scholars suggest a fourth calamity was the way the aftermath was handled, but author Mark Molesky seems more charitably inclined on that front. In “This Gulf of Fire: The Destruction of Lisbon, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason,” Molesky, a historian at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, has written the definitive scholarly account — if not the most accessible one — of that fateful day and its historical aftermath.

“First Man” is a vivid depiction of Neil Armstrong’s life during NASA’s ambitious and terrifying program to reach the moon. The film uses exquisite cinematography to portray the crowning achievement of the space race — Armstrong becoming the first human to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969. Directed by Damien Chazelle, who won an Academy Award for his direction of “La La Land,” the film navigates a fine line among the triumphs and tragedies of the Gemini and Apollo missions, while also telling the story of the home lives of the astronauts and their families. The dynamics in this human drama cannot be solely explained by physics.

In his new book, “Why Dinosaurs Matter,” vertebrate paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara aims to explain why, in fact, studying ancient life does matter. Lacovara has spent his career excavating and publishing on dinosaurs and paleoenvironments, as well as communicating the wonders of paleontology. To share this passion, Lacovara founded Edelman Fossil Park at Rowan University in New Jersey, a publicly accessible quarry containing vertebrate and invertebrate fossils from the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, roughly 66 million years ago.

Galileo’s commitment to Copernican cosmology — with Earth orbiting the sun — despite his 17th-century inquisition and imprisonment by Roman Catholic authorities remains a pivotal moment in the history of modern physics and astronomy, and in the history of tension between science and religion. Though today we take the fundamentals Galileo espoused for granted, in his day, the scientific debate among proponents of different celestial models remained hotly contested.

I was flying to Seattle when I finished Kathryn Miles’ 2017 book, “Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake.” I shut the book with a shudder of dread. There’s trouble brewing below the myriad coffee shops, not just in Seattle, but also across the Pacific Northwest. Seattle and the surrounding region sit atop the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), where the diminutive Juan de Fuca Plate dives eastward beneath the sizable North American Plate, producing a chain of stratovolcanoes arrayed along the coast like pearls on a string — an explosive geohazard.

National Geographic's new 10-part documentary series, "One Strange Rock," is, in a word, superlative, according to our reviewer. Featuring gorgeous footage and state-of-the-art, digitally generated animations, and perhaps covering a wider range of earth science topics than other documentaries in the genre, it’s worthy of the adjective.